South Hams District Council looks to break through kerbside “brick wall”

Tying in with a county-wide 1.1 million grant from the Government's 140m Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund, which is mainly devoted to raising awareness in the county, South Hams will start its new trial in Totnes at the end of September 2002 under the 'Rethink Rubbish' banner.

South Hams District Council, which has recycling targets of 28% by 2003-04 and 36% by 2005-06, already has a large proportion of households served by kerbside collection projects. However, the system in which residents place unsorted materials into 90-litre green bins to be put through a materials reclamation facility in Plymouth is apparently too inefficient to make any further progress.

“We have recycling schemes covering 62% of the district, but we’ve hit a brick wall and we can't get any more recycling out of our current system,” South Hams waste management officer Verity Palk told letsrecycle.com. “It's expensive to run and we're unable to extend it, so we're starting this new trial to try and increase our recycling rate and decrease costs.”

Problem
According to Ms Palk, the problem lies partly with the rural nature of the authority and with the MRF at Plymouth, owned by the city council, which has a low recovery rate for the material sent there for sorting.

Ms Palk explained that the methodology of sorting associated with MRFs means they are unable to recover all materials sent there for sorting. To counter this, the new system will see the 4,500 householders in the trial separating their recylable materials into different sacks before collection.

South Hams district council's executive member for waste management, Isabelle Steer, said: “It is much harder to provide a door-to-door recycling scheme in a rural area than in a town, but with this new system, we think we've found a way we can do it.”

She added: “We are relying on the people of Totnes to help make the trial run a success so that we have a real chance to tackle South Hams' rubbish mountain before it's too late.”

Paper from the new kerbside system will be going to Aylesford Newsprint with cardboard going to a local firm in Somerset, steel cans going to a firm in Llanelli, plastics to Merseyside and Aluminium to Swindon. The project won't be collecting glass, but residents can deposit bottles and jars in banks already.

After its start in September, the trial will be reviewed three months in, and will continue for a total of six months before a decision is made. If successful the trial will be extended to the rest of the district, to replace the current system.